Contrary to what people outside of Juarez often believe, there are always cultural events of one type or another going on here. This week is particularly full.
Tomorrow, Wednesday Nov 8 at the Museo de la Revoluticion de la Frontera (MUREF) begins a series of lectures, photo exhibitions, theater works etc on various aspects of the Mexican revolution. This includes some heretofore unseen photos of Emiliano Zapato in an exhibition curated by Miguel Angel Berumen. Registration for the event starts at 9 tomorrow morning, the photo exhibition has its official opening at 12:15 with words by the curator. The conference and all of the events continue through the 11th.
The next night over at the Museo de Arte, the ever industrious and irrepressible Brenda Ceniceros (I keep running out of adjectives for this extraordinary woman) will be presenting her 2nd book, Cartografias de la Frontera. According to the invitation this is a visual documentation of the frontier as symbolic urban space. The urban landscape and specifically the border region as both a reality and a symbol seems to be an underlying theme of Cenicero’s work, which also is concerned with urban development in all senses of the word. The notice from the Museum lists the presentation at 7, but her Facebook page shows the event beginning at 6.
The next night at the Centro Cultural de las Fronteras is the opening of a Photowalk exhibit accompanied by Jazz with Jazz Euterpe. This is scheduled for 7.
There are a number of other things as well on the other side of the border. On Thursday the El Paso Museum of Art is giving a lecture on how they build a Collection. If they were being accurate it would probably be subtitled Schmooze or lose, but I suspect that’s not the aspect of the process they’re discussing. Should be interesting to hear how they decide what to add and how they go about doing that.
On Saturday Fab Lab is also having a 3-d laser printing demonstration. The list goes on. Enjoy.-david Sokolec

Although it is not happening on our part of the border, I have to say something about Pacific Standard Time:LA/LA, the amazing series of exhibitions opening this Thursday all across southern California devoted to Latin American and Latino art.
Sponsored in large part by the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time is a series of thematically linked exhibitions involving museums galleries and Universities all across the region all dedicating themselves to exploring Latin American art. Though in the main dedicated to contemporary visual art it will also include some ancient traditional Mayan and Aztec art as well. It is not devoted exclusively to visual art but will include other arts such as as dance, food and music.
Although this is happening away from our part of the border, some of our local artists will be showing. Alejandro Almanza Pereda will be in a 3 person show at IBID gallery and I understand that Haydee Alonso will also be showing there. There may be others, and I apologize if I’ve left you out. It wasn’t my intention. , though I haven’t heard eactly where yet. Incidentally, she is also one of two El Paso artists selected to be in this year’s Texas Biennial (the other artist is Angel Cabrales) and I want to send a big congratulations to both of them.
Pacific Standard Time LA/LA opens tonight and runs through January 2018. Their website is full of info. -david sokolec

After what seems like a very long time, the museum, or officially Sala de Arte dedicated to international film star and local hero German Valdes or Tin-Tan finally opened last Thursday night with an exhbition titled, appropriately enough, TinTan illustrado. This featured various artists portraits of the star who, though born in Mexico City, was raised and started his career in Juarez.
The Sala is smallish but airy and still seems to be not quite complete. It will be interesting to see what they do with the space.

It sits just off Juarez avenue in between that street and Mariscal, which was famous for years for being filled with seedy bars, strip clubs and generally the sort of thing that brought some topurists over to Juarez back in the day. During the years of violence all of that was torn down with vague promises for redevelopment. Unfortunately there were no real plans and less money so the whole area simply sat vacant for a number of years.
In the last year or so however there have been concerted efforts to make it a new family friendly destination. They built a new park, called Juan Gabriel park, after the other local international star who got his start here. They are soon going to erect a statue of him in the park. They commisioned Calavera Collectivo and Collectivo 8 to paint huge wonderful murals along the backs of the buldings all along the street and plans were developed for the now opened Tin Tan museum.
Hopefully the whole area will become popular again with a slightly different crowd this time. We’ll see.-david sokolec

There are two worthwhile events this week at the Museo de Arte. Opening on Thursday the 15th at 7pm is Herbadores para Soñadores. This installation in the newly transformed exposition space at the museum is by Gabriela Zubillaga and curated by Victoria Vinamaragui.

The following evening. Carla Rippey is giving a talk at the closing of her wonderful retrospective. Entitled Gráfica Reinventada it is also scheduled for 7pm.

I should also mention there are a number of workshops also scheduled this week at the museum. – david sokolec

There are some great art events happening this week on the border. Beginning tonight, (Wednesday May 17) at the Museo de Arte here in Juarez ,Carlos Palacios, curator at the Museo de Arte Carillo Gil and curator of the Carla Rippey show currently on exhibit will give a free talk about the show. This is at 7 pm and tomorrow at noon he will lead a guided tour of this extraordinary retrospective.
There are a series of events at the museum this week in honor of International Museum Day culminating in a whole series of activities this Saturday at Un Dia en El Museo.

Friday is the opening of what promises to be a fascinating exhibtion to be shown on both sides of the border. Called “Narradores, Ponte en los Zapatos del Otro” here and more simply “Storytellers” in El Paso it shows the work of 60 students from different schools who present thier videos, and projects as well as interviews in which they talk about their life, hopes and dreams.
This was supported by the US Consulate in Juarez with the participation of some other local organizations and, of course, the assistance of a wide variety of local schools.
The opening in Juarez is this Friday night at Juarez Contemporary Gallery at Calle Omega #1351 at 7 pm. It will be up through the 21.
In El Paso it is scheduled to open on the 25th at The Station Urban Offices 500 W. Overland where it will run through the 28th.
Thursday is also the start of a series of films to be shown pimarily at Cafe Unico and at the Cineteca Nacionale branch at Cultural Centro Paso del Norte. The series is called Apanerowa and concerns indigenous culture and human rights . The series at Cafe Unico begins at 4 pm .

So there you have some of the things going on here. Don’t tell me there’s nothing to do in Juarez.-dsokolec

I just learned about the open call for the Texas Biennial today(Thank you Kerry Doyle) so I’m calling attention to it for artists on both sides of the border. As is noted it’s open not only to artists living in Texas but also within ten miles of the border including Mexico. In addition the curator is Mexico City based Leslie Moody Castro. Note the $30 entry fee, but also that there is a stipend if your work is accepted. The deadline is at the end of the month so get on it. -d sokolec

I feel like I need to clone myself this week because there are so many overlapping events I can’t see them all unless I’m my own double.
Beginning last Thursday and running through this Thursday (20) is the amazing “Ambulante-gira de Documentales.”. This yearly collection of documentary films from around the world tours various States of Mexico, and this week it is here. Mostly concerned with issues of social concerns in all of its forms it brings some remarkable films, most of which are free. Included are well-known, though too little seen films like Last Men in Aleppo, about the doctors who stayed in that city during the bombing, but there are also unknown fims and various series on different films like a series of shorts I saw the other day about migration in all of its forms told from a child’s point of view. I was particularly moved by a film of a young boy from Syria who was missing his father still in Syria. There are director’s talks and a series of workshops. This Wednesday night there is an outdoor screening of “Ovarian Psycho” about a group of women (Ovarian Psycho Bicycle Brigade) who use bicycles to take back streets of Los Angeles. This film at 8:00 will be preceded by a bicycle tour starting from La Rodadora led by Punto de Lanza and beginning at 6.
So in addition to all of these films, there is also the Siglo de Oro drama festival on both sides of the border which this year brings troupes from Spain, Canary Islands and Mexico City. These are all free.
Tuesday at 5 there is a free lecture about Carla Rippey’s remarkable exhibition at the Museo de Arte, and of course there are the usual goings on like the weekly c”Charla Fotografia” which features a talk on a different aspect of photography every week.

It’s a good week to be here, I just wish there were more of me.-David sokolec